Compulsions of politics?

Politics has often made strange bedfellows and it has also created circumstances, which have compelled political parties to take decisions, which they would have normally not taken in haste.

After all, politics is a game of possibilities and what is possible now may not be possible in future and what was impossible in the past may be possible in the present.

The Left parties and the BJP have always been opposed to each other and there has never been a meeting ground due to their distinct ideologies. However, there have been occasions in the past when the BJP and the Left have worked together for a common purpose.

It happened as early as 1967 when the Jana Sangh and the CPI(M) were amongst parties opposed to the Congress and in their own way contributed to the formation of Opposition governments in nine States. It was also for the first time, Congress had a taste of defeat.

In 1977 the Jana Sangh and the CPI (M) came together to battle the Congress in the post emergency era. The result was that the Congress was routed in most places. In 1989, the two diametrically opposite parties agreed to support the VP Singh led government from outside.

The government fell after the BJP withdrew support following the arrest of L.K.Advani during his Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya. Now of course there is a little chance of the two groups coming together but nothing can be said as to what may happen in the future if circumstances again conspire to bring them together.

It is not in any way a suggestion that this may happen at all if Narendra Modi continues to lead the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign as the Gujarat Chief Minister because of his controversial credentials is not acceptable to the Left Parties at all.

A lot is also happening in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections and some of the tie ups could be restrained due to the collapse of the Ordinance opposed by Rahul Gandhi recently.

For instance, the Congress will certainly not be exercising the option of an alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav’s party in Bihar given that the former Chief Minister is now behind bars after being convicted in a corruption case. The best choice for the Congress could be to have a tacit understanding with the JD (U) unless it wishes to go it alone.

The Congress is not bound to gain but its strategy would be to encourage a regional party that can stop the BJP from getting more numbers. In other words, the Congress-JD (U) tie up could send a signal to some communities to put their weight behind Nitish rather than Lalu’s party in order to check the Saffron brigade.

Similarly, in Haryana, the BJP was in the process of negotiating an arrangement with Om Prakash Chautala’s party.

The former Chief Minister is in jail on corruption charges and after the collapse of the Ordinance has put the focus back on Corruption, it is unlikely that the BJP will now pursue these negotiations.

The sole beneficiary of this would be Kuldeep Bishnoi who already has an alliance with the BJP and may now be the face of its campaign in the State. He is already on a Yatra and his Yatra was significantly flagged off by senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi.

In other states too, any party trying to forge an alliance with another, which has leaders who are perceived to be corrupt, will have great difficulty in going ahead with its plans. Therefore the coming months will see many plans going awry and many getting materialized.